


The One With the Fire Drill

by queenallyababwa



Series: Stanfou College AU [1]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkwardness, First Meetings, Flirting, M/M, Short One Shot, Tom and Dick Ship It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 20:03:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10543560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenallyababwa/pseuds/queenallyababwa
Summary: Late-night fire drills are just part of the college experience. Stanley and Lefou make the most of a bad situation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm not even sure how this happened. I mean, long story short - I fell into the pit that is this beautiful ship and my friend's building had a fire drill so I was like college au?? College au! I think this might be a short series of little ficlets centered around other collegiate things with this ship.

Lefou does not wake to the soft beeps of his alarm clock or the ding and shudder of his phone alerting him of a new text message. He does not rouse from sound of Gaston shuffling around with the hand weights as he did his morning exercises. 

No. He wakes up to shrill screaming over his head that jolts him. He tries to comprehend was the hell is happening as pulls himself from his bed. 

He smells something smokey.

Instinct rushes in as sits straight and immediately grabs for his glasses (a quick glance tells him that it’s 3:34 am) and tosses aside his blankets. He begins to search for something to serve as a jacket - his rumpled-up sweatshirt sits on his desk chair - and find some shoes.

Gaston has already gotten up and thrown open the door without a word, avoiding potential danger without even thinking things through. The smell of smoke is actually concerning - the last time the fire alarm was set off was because someone used their hairspray a little too close to the detector. Lefou tugs on his sneakers and zips up his sweatshirt before he shuts the door behind him and down the stairs into the parking lot outside the door.

The scene before him that has assembled on the lawn outside reminds him, for some odd reason, of the Titanic passengers gathering on the deck. In the wee hours of the morning, their building is a chaotic array of dress - some are just in their pajamas and coats or their bathrobes, others, who took their time to escape the potentially burning building, have some sort of blanket to wrap around themselves. It’s the dead of winter, so Lefou is glad he has grabbed something to keep him warm.

And then there’s Gaston. 

For a moment, Lefou forgot that Gaston often slept shirtless - no matter how cold the dorms got. And in his panic, he forgot to grab one to pull on a shirt before he headed outside. 

(Or, alternately, he intentionally went outside without his shirt.)

Either way, when Lefou shuffles across the lawn to stand next to his roommate, there is already a small crowd of women offering up their blankets to him. And he’s obviously soaking in all the attention, proudly standing there with his perfectly sculpted body on full display. 

(Typical Gaston.)

He has to fight his way into this circle of Gaston fans but eventually he’s able to stand next to him. Just casually shirtless, Gaston is talking about what/who started the fire. His bets are on the guy down the hall who may or may not have been smoking weed. 

“It’s probably some guy who forgot to put water in his microwaveable mac ‘n cheese,” Lefou chips in as the girls around him shiver and huff because this might be the second time some freshman didn’t read the instructions on their food and has left the entire dorm to stand outside.

(At least the first time it was during the day and it wasn’t as bothersome.)

But there isn’t much they can do about it other than stand and wait for either the fire trucks to arrive or for the all clear to be given. 

A total of five minutes later, it starts to snow as they can still hear the alarm wailing inside and the fire trucks are nowhere in sight. 

But what Lefou can definitely see is that goosebumps have covered the entirety of Gaston’s arm. And although Gaston is trying to appear he’s not fazed by this in the slightest, the mere glance to his roommate make even more cold than he already is. Suddenly, he catches himself unzipping the hoodie and offers it to Gaston. It’s large and comfortable and Gaston immediately shrugs it on, without a word to Lefou, but continues to chat to the assembled girls.

It’s fine. Lefou knows that within the next five minutes, they’ll most likely be back inside, cozy in bed, trying to get in another five hours of sleep before those awful eight ams.

Still. It’s snowing. He wraps his arms around himself and ducks out of the Gaston circle. Across the lawn, he notices a guy staring directly at him with a small smirk on his lips. Lefou recognizes him as one of the guys - Stanley, from what he could remember - from down the hall who live in the awkward triple room on the long hallway of doubles. His two roommates are busy chatting amongst themselves.

But this guy. He was grinning right at Lefou, his hand peeks out of his red coverlet wrapped around his body and gently waves.

Lefou looks back to Gaston - who doesn’t seem to notice his roommate was missing - and then looks at the other guy. Still with his arms around him, he shuffles the distance between them.

Stanley and Lefou passed each other in the halls every once in awhile. One of them would be heading down to the laundry room while the other was bringing up their hamper up the stairs. They’d sit on opposite ends of the common room, Stanley reading a book while Lefou watched the game on tv with Gaston. 

(But of course - there was that one awkward interaction where Lefou stumbled into the GSA a couple weeks ago, looking awkward and unsure of himself. Stanley sat seats away with him and they didn’t talk at all. Both men didn’t acknowledge the interaction because their nods to each other as they stood in line for the vending machine didn’t really change.)

“You look cold,” Stanley says as Lefou approaches.

“I’m fine,” Lefou says with a short shrug, trying to ignore the snowflakes that are clinging to his glasses and what he knows should be terrible bedhead. He looks back to Gaston, who has the sweatshirt over his body but still completely unzipped. He looks back to the other man. “I couldn’t just let him freeze like that.”

“You’re a good roommate. It was every man for himself when the alarm went off,” Stanley laughs.

“Well, it’s warlike instinct whenever somebody’s late-night snack causes a fire.” Lefou smirks that this predicament because, yes, it’s absolutely a pain-in-the-ass, but in the light of day, a few days away separated, it’s a good story. 

Stanley laughs along and pulls his blanket tighter around himself as he looks at Lefou like he’s studying him. They are quiet for a brief moment before Stanley says something.

“I’ve never seen you with your glasses before,” he notes.

“Oh!” Lefou is caught off guard by this, forgetting all about his contacts. “Yeah, I ah, wear contacts more often now but I actually think that my glasses are much more comfortable but I’m just kind of tired of them getting them gross when it rains or when it snows or you know maybe falling down and breaking them because that’s happened before and -” 

He stops. He can’t believe he’s rambling but god even at 3 am this guy is cute in his pajamas and tousled hair.

“I like them,” Stanley says, still smiling that smile that’s so warm. “You looks so academic.”

“T-thank you?” Lefou stammers as he takes his glasses off to rub them on his shirt, to clear off the precipitation that has already accumulated, but this distraction is a way to hide his blush because he can’t believe a guy is flirting with me a guy is flirting with him at 3 am.

They’re quiet again for another minute. Because Lefou honestly doesn’t know where to go from here because it’s so early in the morning and he can’t believe this is happening. And he knows he’s gonna say something stupid and before he can catch himself he blurts out, “So, have you ever played Deserted Island?”

“Deserted Island?” Stanley repeats. 

“Yeah, that’s ah, what people do when there’s a fire?” Lefou starts and hesitates. “I mean, at least on The Office.”

“Oh,” Stanley wraps his blanket tighter around himself, “well, believe it not, I’m the only guy on the floor who hasn’t seen the whole thing.”

“Really?” Lefou gives a mock pointed glance, shifting his weight onto one foot incredulously. 

“Don’t give me that look,” Stanley says, shrugging through his blanket. He laughs but then admits, “Yeah, I ah, I watched a lot of movies, usually. Some documentaries here or there but I never got on the binge-watching train.”

“Ah, well, maybe we could watch it some time together,” Lefou says, barely able to catch himself because words are just tumbling out and he can’t seem to catch them. “Gaston’s at practice or the gym a lot of the time and we have a tv we could watch it on. It’s better than the busted one out in the common room.”

For a moment he’s afraid of what Stanley will say to this proposition. But Stanley’s small is warm as he tells Lefou, “I’d like that a lot.”

And suddenly there is a mass of people heading back towards the dorm. 

“I guess there was no fire then?” Lefou says, shrugging. And although it’s snowing and freezing and he just wants the curl back into bed, he feels a little sad that he and Stanley have to go separate ways. 

“Get it, Stan!” Someone says low enough that Lefou can hear it. Two men walk ahead of them and Lefou recognizes them as the two other guys standing and talking near Stanley. One of them looks over his shoulder and smiles at Stanley.

Lefou turns to Stanley for clarification as Stanley rolls his eyes.

“That’s my roommate, Dick,” Stanley groaned. “He’s convinced that I need to ‘get out there’ so every time I come remotely close to another guy, he thinks he can start playing Cupid.”

They walk into the building and up the stairs to their floor. Stanley’s door is still wide open and his roommates are climbing back into their bunk bed.

(At least they are getting back and bed. Lefou has no idea what happened in the five minutes between when he left Gaston, but there may or may not be an extra person in their dorm, worst case scenario. Best case, Gaston went back to her dorm.)

“See you later?” Lefou says as he stands in front of his door.

“Yeah. See you later.” Stanley smiles and ducks behind his door, closing it with a soft click.

Lefou walks into his room and shuts the door. Just ass predicted, Gaston is not there, but Lefou isn’t so much bothered by his absence or the fact that he managed to pick somebody up during a fire drill. Because he wasn’t the only one who was so lucky.


End file.
